


charm offensive

by hardlygolden



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Enemies to Friends, Gen, Misses Clause Challenge, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-21
Updated: 2014-12-21
Packaged: 2018-03-02 15:54:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2817878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hardlygolden/pseuds/hardlygolden
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s Sergeant Terrance Jeffords that shows Amy around on her first day at the 99th Precinct.</p><p>“What’s Rosa like?” Amy asks, curious about her absent colleague.</p><p>Gina smiles. “She is just the sweetest,” she enthuses and then cackles. “Ell oh ell. I couldn’t even say that with a straight face. She is going to eat you alive.” Gina makes a strange abortive claw gesture, as if miming detaching Amy’s eyes from their sockets and using them as the key ingredient in a margarita.</p><p>Amy grew up with seven older brothers. It takes more than some admittedly wacky pantomime to scare her. It’s possible that Gina didn’t mean that as a challenge, however coupled with Amy’s pathological need to be liked, and the fact that she had yet to meet a person she couldn’t charm through sheer persistence - well - Amy and Rosa’s first meeting was always going to be a recipe for disaster.</p>
            </blockquote>





	charm offensive

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fabrega](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fabrega/gifts).



It’s Sergeant Terrance Jeffords that shows Amy around on her first day at the 99th Precinct.

He puts her at ease straight away - and he walks her desk by desk, introducing her to everyone on the team.

She meets Scully (sweet; charmless); Boyle (sweet; harmless); Jake (textbook Peter Pan syndrome); Gina ( _bizarre_ ); and then finally Terry gestures to the empty desk. “And this is where Rosa sits,” he says. “You two will sit opposite each other.”

Rosa happens to be out on a case the entire morning, so in her absence, Amy looks to Gina for advice. “What’s Rosa like?” she asks, curious about her absent colleague.

Gina smiles. “She is just the sweetest,” she enthuses and then cackles. “Ell oh ell. I couldn’t even say that with a straight face. _She is going to eat you alive_.”

Gina makes a strange abortive claw gesture, as if miming detaching Amy’s eyes from their sockets and using them as the key ingredient in a margarita.

Amy comes from a family of cops, grew up with seven older brothers.

It takes more than some admittedly wacky pantomime to scare her.

It’s _possible_ that Gina didn’t mean that as a challenge, however coupled with Amy’s pathological need to be liked, and the fact that she had yet to meet a person she couldn’t charm through sheer persistence - well - Amy and Rosa’s first meeting was always going to be a recipe for disaster.

*

Precisely how _much_  of a disaster doesn’t become immediately clear until that afternoon, when Rosa Diaz finally makes her appearance.

Amy’s interviewing a walk-in who has stopped by to make a report. He’s a middle-aged man with a bald spot and a beer gut, and he doesn’t want to talk to her - keeps staring hopefully at Jake’s direction, as if waiting for a _real_ detective to swoop in and rescue him.

It gets Amy’s back up, of course it does, but she is more used to these displays of casual sexism than she’d like to admit, and she has found the most effective method is to maintain her professionalism.

Admittedly, some days, that’s harder than others.

“I’m sorry,” he says, not sounding sorry at all. “I’m still surprised that you’re a detective? You look like you’re about fourteen.”

“I’m twenty-two,” she protests - and then, a beat too late - “ _and_ a detective.”

“Next time, lead with the detective bit,” advises a voice from over her left shoulder. "You. Scram." It takes Amy a second to realise the second command is not addressed to her. 

And that’s how Amy meets Rosa Diaz.

“Hi there,” Amy says, smiling and extending her hand out for Rosa to shake.

Rosa doesn’t move towards her - she looks at Amy, and then at Amy’s outstretched hand.

“You must be Rosa,” Amy says, smiling even harder on principle.

“Name’s Diaz,” is the curt reply, and she taps her pencil against the name plate on her desk - _Rosa Diaz_ \- spelt out in metal lettering.

Amy suddenly is grateful that Rosa - sorry, _Diaz_ \- doesn’t shake her hand, because it is now clammy with nerves.

Amy concentrates very hard on neither panicking nor curtseying, or, worst of all - panick-curtseying - because she is not, in fact, fourteen.

She was, however, up until this moment, genuinely excited to be stationed at a precinct with another female cop approximately her age.

*

Diaz isn’t anything at all like what she’d expected.

The only almost-comforting thing is that _everyone_ in the precinct appears to be unilaterally terrified of Diaz.

So, at least Amy’s not alone in that regard.

*

The thing is, though, she _is_ alone. Like, Gina and Jake have some weird and inexplicable BFF connection which makes it hard to break into, and of all the others in the precinct, Diaz seemed like the logical choice - something of an outsider, a bit prickly, a little misunderstood.

She should be grateful that Amy is reaching out to her.

Diaz is decidedly not grateful that Amy is reaching out to her - and makes absolutely no effort to hide her distaste.

*

Amy just wants people to like her, always.

Is that so wrong?

 _Yes_ , retorts her internal monologue, and the disdain is so reminiscent of Diaz that Amy whirls around in her chair in surprise - only to find Diaz is glaring at her in open suspicion.

“What’s this?” she asks. She lifts up the mug of takeaway coffee that Amy had left on her desk.

“Coffee?” Amy asks rather than answers, wondering if it’s a trick question. “I called in on my way to work and got some from the cafe down the road on my way in. I thought you might like one too.”

Diaz takes a sip and then spits it out into the bin. “Tastes like crap.”

Amy feels too embarrassed to drink her own coffee directly in the wake of that ringing endorsement, so on her next trip to the kitchen she smuggles it in under her sweater and tips it out in the sink.

Of course, Gina catches her doing it, and somehow instantly intuits the reason why, despite Amy not offering a word of explanation.

“You'll never crack her," she cackles. 

Amy thinks of Aesop and lions and thorns, and wonders. 

*

On Wednesday, Amy tries a deluxe frappuccino as the next stage in her charm offensive.

Diaz doesn’t say anything - doesn’t even try it - just pointedly leaves it sitting on the corner of her desk, exactly where Amy had left it that morning.

It’s supremely awkward, is what it is.

“If you’re not going to drink that, can I have it?” Jake asks.

“Nope,” says Diaz, without even looking up.

Amy watches disconsolately as the condensation gathers. All the ice-cubes have melted, and the cream and topping have formed a murky patina film across the top. 

By 2pm, it’s starting to smell.

For the next three hours, Amy continues poring over the eighteen manila folders of sworn statements and witness testimonies, wielding her pink and green and orange highlighters with more force than strictly necessary.

She can't help but notice that Diaz has systematically stripped the petals off the flowers that Amy had left in a vase on her desk this morning.

*

Diaz' wardrobe consists of various combinations of black outfits. On the rare occasions she smiles, she bares all her teeth.

Amy wears pant suits and headbands, and cradles a clipboard to her chest like it’s a security blanket.

It’s her first interrogation. She has a right to be nervous, okay?

“How about: you be good cop, I’ll be bad cop,” Diaz suggests.

“How about we _both_ be good cops?” Amy ventures. It’s meant to be a joke, not a question, and she kicks herself for the way it comes out sounding.

Diaz shakes her head, like Amy is disappointing her on purpose. “What is it, do you want to be bad cop?” she offers, and then snorts, like she doesn’t even believe it.

“Hey! I could be bad cop,” Amy protests.

“Haha,” says Diaz. “Hahaha.”

“I can!” Amy says.

*

“What is it today,” asks Diaz, gesturing towards the cup on her desk.

“Mint hot chocolate?”

“Is that a question or a statement?” Diaz asks.

“That depends. Do you like mint hot chocolate?”

“No,” says Diaz. “I wanted black coffee.”

“No problem. Here, have my black coffee,” says Amy, smiling as she neatly switches their coffee cups.

“Did I say black coffee?” asks Diaz. “Whoops. I meant a soy latte.” She smirks.

Amy smirks back - opening her desk drawer to triumphantly reveal the tray of takeaway coffees she stashed there two minutes before Diaz walked in. It’s basically the entire Starbucks menu, plus some more esoteric combinations that occurred to her while she was waiting in line. $78 and a barista who thought she was absolutely cuckoo seems a small price to pay now, for this moment.

“Did you think of that all by yourself?” Diaz asks, arching an eyebrow at her.

“I read it in a book once,” said Amy, ever truthful to a fault.

“Which book?” Diaz asks, and it’s the first time that Amy has ever seen her curious.

Amy doesn’t always think through things before she says them. That’s the only explanation she can give for why she automatically replies, “Pollyanna,”.

It’s at least ten minutes before Diaz stops laughing, and when she finally does drink her coffee, she pulls a face. “Ugh. It’s cold,” she says.

“Oh,” says Amy, deflated. She reaches for the coffee, as if to throw it away - and Diaz’s hand shoots out to stop her.

“Leave it,” she orders. “I’ll drink it.” She stares at Amy balefully. “I won’t _like_ it, but I’ll still drink it.”

Jake and Boyle and Gina share the seventeen leftover drinks between them, and the resulting over-caffeination gives birth to some bizarre inter-office games.

Through it all, Captain McGintley remains totally oblivious, only venturing out of his office to heat up his microwave soup.

While the precinct captain's bumbling ineptitude is lucky in this instance, it’s unlucky in the general sense - Amy was _really_ hoping for more of a mentor figure. Captain McGintley is super-old, though. Maybe he’ll retire soon?

*

Amy _so_ wishes she had the level of eyebrow game that Diaz displays on a regular basis.

Amy admittedly may have gone a _little_ overboard practicing her eyebrow lifts in front of the mirror for two hours last night, because today her left eyebrow has developed a pronounced tic, which has appeared at the most inconvenient time.  

It is also entirely within the realm of possibility that the three coffees she drank this morning _may_ have exacerbated the situation, somewhat. She was  _nervous_ , okay?

At least now she’s got Diaz’s full attention.

“Seriously, that’s fantastic,” Diaz says, watching her in open fascination. “You do realise it’s supposed to be the suspect that gets twitchy, not the cop that’s actually doing the interrogation?”

“Shut up,” Amy hisses. Her blush is creeping from her cheeks right down to her neck, and her increasing embarrassment just makes her eyebrow spasm again.

Diaz watches it in awe.

The suspect watches both of them in suspicion, like they’re trying to lull him into a false sense of security.

Amy doesn’t believe that Diaz has ever _lulled_ anybody into anything. She favours a sledgehammer approach.

Fortunately, a few moments later, Amy is able to point to something in her colour-coded binder - a previous witness statement - and use it to systematically decimate the suspect’s testimony.

“Ha. Nice work, Twitchy,” says Diaz, after the interrogation is over. “Turns out you make a pretty good bad cop after all.”

Amy _hates_ her.

*

By Friday morning, Amy has had enough.

“From now on, you can get your own damn coffee, Diaz,” she snaps, when Diaz shoots a pointed look at Amy when she walks in empty-handed.

As Amy sits down, she sweeps her arm out to shove Diaz’s boot-clad foot off the corner off the desk, and knocks off a stack of folders in the process. She can't bring herself to care. 

Diaz tilts back in her chair, and eyes Amy assessingly, as if she’s seeing her for the first time. Maybe she is.

“Okay. _Now_ you can call me Rosa,” she allows. “Want some coffee? I’m buying.”


End file.
